330* Transactions of the American Institute. 



muck, vegetable mould, or straw than anything else, the crop will be 

 straw. The wheat plant is the most fastidious feeder of all the 

 cereals. If the land is not supplied with appropriate pabulum, it is 

 folly to attempt to raise wheat. This is precisely the case with many 

 of our most beautiful and delicate flowers. The growing plants are 

 not half fed. Those exquisitely gorgeous peteils we often so . much 

 admire for their wonderful beauty, are meagre, and inferior to what 

 they would have been if the growing plants had not been starved. 

 Even growing flowers may suffer from starvation, as well as a cow at 

 a straw stack. Plants cannot bring forth beauty out of nothing, any 

 more than the dyer can deliver us beautiful garments dyed in richest 

 purple, or scarlet, or crimson, without the necessary materials, all of 

 which must be supplied to the soil for producing rich colors. We 

 all have seen many flowers which look pale and wan, because the 

 careful florist, never has thought whether the growing plants could or 

 could not extract the rich velvety hues of the Ulium auratum from 

 such material as had been supplied .to the growing roots. These 

 considerations lead us to the inquiry as to the requirements of flowers, 

 in order to develop more beautiful and gorgeous petals. Those persons 

 who have observed wild flowers growing when the soil is filled with 

 iron and sand and a liberal supply of humus, or vegetable matter, 

 never fail to remark the unusual beauty and richness of the petals. 

 During my ramblings in the unimproved regions of south Jersey I 

 have often been sm*prised to see what a difference there is in the 

 beauty of the flowers that blossom in the lonely forest, wasting their 

 fragrance on the desert air, and many of the same varieties that are 

 cultivated with extreme care in costly gardens, especially where those 

 in the wild woods sprang from a sand bank in which there was an 

 abundance of iron and some muck. Taking the hint from these 

 observations of flowers in their uncultivated state, we are able to 

 make a practical application of the knowledge thus gained in bring- 

 ing out far more beautiful flowers than we have been accustomed to 

 produce. Flowers of all kinds require iron for coloring matter. For 

 this purpose iron turnings and iron filing, which may be obtained 

 gratuitously at the iron foimderies, will be found of great value, in sup- 

 plying one of the fundamental requirements of growing flowers. The 

 oxide of iron — those dark colored, thin scales which fall from the 

 iron when blacksmiths hammer the heated bars — are more valuable 

 as a dressing for the soil where flowers grow than Peruvian guano ; 

 because such substances supply dame nature with an abundance of 



